Whose Peace? Decolonising water diplomacy as a fourth paradigm for justice

By Mohsen Nagheeby

The politics of being cited but not heard

If water diplomacy is to deliver peace through justice, then the field must be fundamentally reframed; otherwise, we should be honest that justice is not the goal. This Forum piece contends that such a reframing requires questioning the field's core assumptions – and argues that decolonising water diplomacy represents a fourth paradigm.

Over the past decade, scholarship on water and peace has grown rapidly and new perspectives have emerged, including justice-oriented work. But this work falls short of achieving justice because it remains focused on peace as the central goal. We must adopt a hydro-decolonial paradigm that does not simply add a justice lens to existing models but interrogates peace itself as a category shaped by global power.

To date, a consistent pattern persists: decolonial work is cited but not integrated. It appears as a signal of pluralism, while its foundational claims – about peace as a project of power, about discursive power, and about the coloniality of diplomacy and governance – remain largely unaddressed.

This produces inclusion without meaningful displacement: decolonial perspectives are acknowledged, but the epistemic furniture of the field – its categories, assumptions and conceptual hierarchies – remains intact. Work on decolonising water diplomacy (e.g., Nagheeby & Amezaga, 2023; Nagheeby et al., 2025) is typically referenced as part of an "emerging justice perspective" yet rarely engaged where it hurts most: the mainstream assumption that peace = cooperation + stability.

These dynamics are not limited to published scholarship. In two recent invitations to contribute to international "water and peace" platforms, the boundaries of acceptable critique were made explicit. In one case, I was asked not to mention decoloniality or refer to ongoing dispossession in Palestine because it was considered "too political". In another, a piece on decolonising water diplomacy funded through a research grant was judged "incompatible" to be published with the host platform because it questioned the liberal peace assumptions the platform itself rests on.

These are not personal grievances. They are symptoms of a structural pattern: decolonial critiques are welcome as long as they do not unsettle the architecture of peace itself. Debates on transboundary waters have largely crystallised around three paradigms. Together, they structure how we think about "water diplomacy":

I.Realist "water war":

From neo-Malthusian warnings to securitisation narratives, realist approaches interpret transboundary water relations through scarcity, strategic rivalry, and national security (e.g., Naff & Matson, 1984; Gleick, 1994). They are a) state-centric, b) zero-sum, and c) framed in terms of risk and threat. Colonial histories, racialised hierarchies and identity-based grievances tend to disappear into the background – if they appear at all.

II.Liberal "water peace":

A second paradigm presents a more reassuring story: cooperation is more common than conflict. Treaties, river basin organisations, and benefit-sharing are framed as pathways to regional stability (e.g., Wolf, 1999; Sadoff & Grey, 2005). Complexity, game theory and nexus approaches add analytical frameworks, but the normative horizon remains liberal peace seen as institutionalised cooperation, predictability and order. Here, peace becomes a technocratic project. It often reflects the foreign policy and security interests of donors, while pushing coloniality, structural injustice and symbolic violence to the margins.

III.Critical–constructivist "conflict–cooperation coexistence":

Critical hydropolitics and coexistence frameworks (e.g., Mirumachi & Allan, 2007; Zeitoun et al., 2020; Warner et al., 2017) have been crucial in showing that: a) conflict and cooperation co-exist, b) power is material, institutional and ideational, and c) discourses and norms matter. Hydro-hegemony (Zeitoun & Warner, 2006) sharpened our understanding of domination and resistance. Nevertheless, much of the work remains focused on interest-oriented conflict transformation and is ultimately tied to a security–peace horizon. Identity is often treated as a secondary factor rather than a constitutive force.

It was only through confronting the limitations of this paradigm that I began to articulate a decolonial reframing of water diplomacy. This shift is an expansion, not a rejection. It builds on critical hydropolitics but moves into terrains that require a conceptual vocabulary beyond what that paradigm offers.

Peace remains the obvious endpoint for all three paradigms, and water diplomacy largely a tool to manage or stabilise relations, rather than to interrogate the histories, violences and exclusions that structure them.

Why the three paradigms cannot address coloniality

The three paradigms have a shared centre of gravity:

a)Security–peace is taken as the obvious horizon, and peace is a neutral, desirable endpoint

b)Interests, especially material ones, are assumed to be the main drivers

c)Knowledge and representation are at best contested descriptively rather than accepted as constitutive.

A decolonial perspective challenges all three. "Water for peace" is not merely a reflection of empirical realities; it is a politically manufactured reality, sustained through discursive power and narrative framing. Narratives of "hotspots", "fragility" or "water wars" do not simply describe; they shape funding priorities, interventions and legitimacy. High-level peace initiatives that marginalise "Global South" voices can generate forms of peace that exist more fully in reports than in lived experience.

Peace, in this sense, often functions as a (neo)colonial governance technology: stabilising uneven arrangements, depoliticising grievances, and declaring unfinished struggles "resolved". This raises a question that rarely appears in mainstream water diplomacy: What and whose peace is being pursued, through which histories, and at what cost?

A fourth paradigm: A hydro-decolonial turn

It is against this backdrop that I locate decolonising water diplomacy as a fourth paradigm – a hydro-decolonial paradigm. It is not simply "more critical", "more normative", or even "more radical"; it reorders the foundations. It proposes a shift from a security–peace orientation to an equity–identity orientation. The starting question is no longer: "How do we secure peace?" but rather,

"Whose equity and identity have been denied, harmed or erased – and how must diplomacy address that?"

In many basins, such as the Nile or the Jordan, identity-based grievances and colonial histories shape hydropolitics as deeply as flows and storage. Stability built on silencing these grievances is not peace; it is pacification. A hydro-decolonial perspective therefore places justice before peace. In a context such as the Jordan basin, can we meaningfully speak of "water peace" if agreements rest on ongoing occupation and dispossession, even if they generate cooperation and infrastructure?

The hydro-decolonial paradigm also prioritizes discursive power, in continuity with critical hydropolitics, by examining how maps, datasets, funding flows, policy narratives and even bibliometric "research agendas" construct water diplomacy as an object of knowledge; however, it brings a sharp focus to the (neo)colonial roles these discursive regimes play. To decolonise water diplomacy is to interrogate these regimes of representation and open space for situated, indigenous and "Global South" epistemologies to define the terms of diplomacy.

A hydro-decolonial paradigm not only adds a justice lens to existing models; it interrogates peace itself as a category shaped by global power, and forces us to confront new questions:

• Should peace remain an unquestioned endpoint in transboundary water governance?
• Can diplomacy ignore identity-based injustice and still claim legitimacy?
• Are "Global South" voices being included, or merely accommodated and domesticated?

If the answer to any of these questions is uncertain, then perhaps a paradigmatic opening is overdue.

If water diplomacy is to remain relevant, it will need more than new data, new models, or new agreements. It will require a reordering of its foundational questions – placing equity alongside interest, identity alongside sovereignty, and justice before peace.

Whether we call this a fourth paradigm or simply a long-delayed reckoning, the debate it provokes is precisely what a Forum like this is meant to host.

References

Gleick P. H. (1994). Water, war & peace in the Middle East. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 36(3), 6–42.

Mirumachi N. & Allan J. A. (2007). Revisiting transboundary water governance: power, conflict cooperation and the political economy. In: Proceedings from CAIWA International Conference on Adaptive and Integrated Water Management: Coping with Scarcity, Basel, Switzerland. Citeseer.

Naff T. & Matson R. (1984). Middle East Water: The Potential for Conflict. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.

Nagheeby, M., & Amezaga, J. (2023). Decolonising water diplomacy and conflict transformation: from security-peace to equity-identity. Water Policy, 25(8), 835-850.

Nagheeby, M., Mason, O., Dajani, M., & Hussein, H. (2025). Decolonizing water diplomacy for justice: Conceptual reflections and policy implications. Environment and Security, 27538796251362284.

Sadoff, C. W., & Grey, D. (2005). Cooperation on international rivers: A continuum for securing and sharing benefits. Water International, 30(4), 420-427.

Zeitoun M. & Warner J. (2006). Hydro-hegemony – a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts. Water Policy 8(5), 435–460.

Zeitoun M., Mirumachi N. & Warner J. (2020). Water Conflicts: Analysis for Transformation. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York.

Warner, J., Mirumachi, N., Farnum, R. L., Grandi, M., Menga, F., & Zeitoun, M. (2017). Transboundary 'hydro‐hegemony': 10 years later. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 4(6), e1242.

Wolf A. T. (1999). 'Water wars' and water reality: conflict and cooperation along international waterways. In: Environmental Change, Adaptation, and Security, Lonergan, S.C., (ed). Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 251–265.